


Love and Death

by killingg_eve



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, I am sorry in advance, Pain, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:07:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29014086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingg_eve/pseuds/killingg_eve
Summary: Villanelle dies.--Tw/Cw: death, mild gore
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Love and Death

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the absolute pain.  
> I wish I could give each of you a handkerchief or tissue before you read this.  
> Lovers of angsty fantasies: this one is for you.
> 
> Love you all. Let me know what you think 🥺

The sun was shining. The breeze was cool and the air was slightly damp. Villanelle and Eve walked side by side, with Carolyn shuffling ahead of them at a brisk walking pace, her hands buried in her pockets.

They were making their way back to their new MI6 headquarters in London. Only a few weeks into their new routine, they’d become accustomed to these afternoon walks. Eve and Villanelle, especially, began to enjoy them.

Villanelle had been saying something offbeat. Something about wanting to have a pet chicken; about being willing to try. She smirked and her cheeks became dimpled, and Eve looked, admired, and grinned as they turned the street corner.

When Eve chuckled and stopped in her tracks—when Eve looked down at her shoes and then back up, in the direction of the alleyway they always passed through—that was when she heard the deafening bang of the gunshot.

The SWAT team gathered behind them. Eve could make out the faint sound of Carolyn saying “Just the blonde” to one of the armed men, and she held the same enthusiasm that one might have when ordering coffee.

Eve’s ears rang. When she looked down, again, her lover laid down on the cobblestone, a few steps ahead. Blood seeped through Villanelle’s shirt on the left side of her abdomen.

Eve immediately lunged forward and fell onto her knees by Villanelle’s side. Her breathing was quick and her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes scanned all of Villanelle, eventually becoming frozen when she looked at the wound.

“Call an ambulance!” Eve yelled. Her voice wavered with panic, as though she was too dumbfounded to speak, but forced herself to scream, anyway.

“We cannot call an ambulance for a hit we ordered,” Carolyn responded. “No one is going to help her.”

Eve’s gaze flickered up to meet Carolyn’s. “Ordered?” she said through clenched teeth. And then she screamed it. “ _Ordered_?!”

“Yes. Don’t forget how many people have died by her hands, Eve. And thank you for hiring her; it slotted into our plan perfectly.”

Carolyn turned and started to walk away, continuing on towards the office. She stalled when she heard Eve’s gut-wrenching scream.

“ _Fuck you_!!” Eve bellowed, without a care in the world of whether all of London could hear the grief in her gravelly voice.

Carolyn turned around and made eye contact with Eve. She waited a moment, then said, “See you on Monday, Eve.”

Eve closed her eyes and began to panic. Her breathing became audible, and her stomach rose and fell with each heaving breath, and the veins in her forehead became prominent.

She was interrupted by a humming sound that came from Villanelle. A distressed, yet attention-seeking hum. It was gentle in all of its desperation.

When Eve looked down, she saw Villanelle’s head tilted slightly towards her. Villanelle looked at Eve’s eyes so steadily and surely, and it made Eve believe that Villanelle had been looking up at her, the entire time.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Eve cried, and she placed her hands on Villanelle’s cheeks, urgently. “She tricked me,” Eve implored her, “she _wanted_ this to happen.” She begged Villanelle to believe her—to trust that she loved her, that she would never participate in something so vengeful and cruel.

“Ee—” Villanelle hummed. She was cut off by a pain in her stomach, as any movement (even the vibration of her own voice) seemed to aggravate the searing pain. She gritted her teeth and then looked back up at Eve. She relaxed herself, in a sense, by searching every part of Eve’s face and memorizing her features. She took even, careful breaths.

Eve moved her hands to Villanelle’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, baby,” Eve told her, calm and low, her eyebrow furrowed in anguish.

Villanelle rocked her head back and forth in slight motions, as if to say “no,” and she continued taking careful breaths. She nudged her arm against Eve’s knees. It was all she could offer.

But then, her eyes flickered down to where her wrist rested against Eve, and she saw her bullet wound. She saw the sea of red cast upon her sage green shirt. Her eyes grew wide and she started to hyperventilate; she started to panic.

“Look at me!” Eve told her. “Look at me!” And she shrugged her cream coat off of her shoulders quickly. “D-Don’t look down—” Eve stammered, and she laid her coat down over Villanelle’s stomach. Then, she rested her hand on Villanelle’s shoulder, again. She gazed down into Villanelle’s eyes. The two looked at each other, for a moment, while Villanelle continued to struggle to take full, even breaths.

“Ee,” Villanelle hummed, and she looked towards her hand, again.

Eve looked at what she was doing. She watched Villanelle run her fingers over her thumb ring in sweeping motions, trying to budge the ring off of her thumb.

“Oh!” Eve muttered, and she took the ring off of Villanelle’s thumb, for her. She held it between her thumb and index finger, examining it. She started to say, “What do you . . .” but Villanelle’s hand swept over hers, covering the ring and the fingers that held it. When Eve looked at Villanelle’s eyes, again, the message was clear. Eve knew it was meant for her.

Eve felt Villanelle’s hand drop down to rest on her knee as she put the ring on. She tried fitting it onto her ring finger, first, but she found that the ring was too big. She tried her middle finger, and it fit perfectly. She turned her hand over to admire the golden ring on her hand. She looked back towards Villanelle’s eyes.

“Eve,” Villanelle addressed her, weakly. Villanelle’s eyes welled up with tears and she smiled a melancholy, nostalgic, loving smile.

Eve leaned fully over her, then. One of Eve’s hands cupped Villanelle’s face, and the other smoothed over the top of her golden hair.

“I’ll never forget you,” Eve cried, resting her forehead to Villanelle’s. “I’ll carry you with me forever,” she said, shakily and quietly. Her eyes fell closed with overwhelming emotion. “I love you so much, Villanelle,” she said.

“’Ove you,” Villanelle murmured, as best as she could.

Although both of their faces were damp with tears, and although neither of them could tell if their cheeks were stained with their own tears or with each other’s, Eve and Villanelle rested there for a few moments longer. They breathed each other in and trembled with the heavy anticipation of loss.

Then, Eve kissed Villanelle’s lips tenderly. Longingly. And her hand continued to stroke over the top of Villanelle’s head, over her soft hair.

Eventually, the sun shifted behind the surrounding buildings, and the street looked blue-ish and soft. Villanelle continued to bleed out, slowly, as she continued to look at Eve’s eyes.

In time, Eve came to realize that Villanelle’s careful breaths, paired with her steady, sometimes distant gaze, meant that Villanelle was trying to keep herself alive. To be with Eve, to keep existing with Eve.

“You have to let go,” Eve told her in a stern whisper.

Villanelle frowned slightly, hummed “nn—."

“You have to let go,” Eve begged, quieter and softer, this time.

A tear rolled down Villanelle’s cheek. Her face twisted with hurt and regret.

Eve swept the teardrop away with her thumb and kissed Villanelle, again. Her lips brushed over Villanelle’s and kissed her, there, softly.

“ _Let go_ ,” Eve whispered, almost inaudibly.

She quickly laid herself down beside Villanelle and nestled against the side of Villanelle’s face. One arm swept under Villanelle’s neck, and the other rested on Villanelle’s collarbone. Eve could feel Villanelle’s slowing, dying heartbeat. She could feel Villanelle’s still-warm skin. She brushed her hand over the warmth, appreciating the way it remained.

“You’re safe with me,” Eve whispered. She placed slow, long kisses upon Villanelle’s cheek.

“You can let _go_ , now,” Eve said, equally pained and steady.

She lifted her thumb off of Villanelle’s chest so that it could stroke Villanelle’s chin.

“You can let go, Oksana,” Eve whispered.

“ _Close your eyes_ ,” Eve begged.

Oksana did.

“ _I’ve got you_ ,” Eve breathed.

Oksana exhaled, and a few moments passed before Eve realized that her lungs had emptied for the last time.

Eve had soothed herself and her beloved, and she held Oksana with her eyes closed, before eventually waking to the realization that Oksana was truly gone. Her hand on Oksana’s chest felt no heartbeat, and the skin of Oksana’s cheek was becoming cold with the chill of London’s evening air.

She gently pulled her arm from under the dead weight of Oksana’s shoulders. When Eve shifted her leg away from Oksana’s body, she found that her trousers were covered in blood, from the knee down.

She sat beside Oksana’s vacant body for as long as she could. Mostly, she sat with her knees to her chest and just gazed over the whole of Oksana’s body. She felt grateful that she soothed Oksana to rest, because her face looked peaceful; beautiful. Although Eve felt uncomfortable to touch Oksana’s cold skin, again, she brushed her hand over Oksana’s forearm while her thoughts began to string together apologies and goodbyes that would likely never end, for years to come.

**

Eventually, Eve made a few phone calls and walked home, unaware of how late the hour had become. On her way home, she remembered the last time she looked at Oksana, which was when she laid Oksana’s arms across each other—laying her to rest. And she’d surrendered the rest of the decisions to whoever collected Oksana’s body (whether it was the funeral services she called, first, or whether they would refuse and leave law enforcement to sort things out).

Eve trudged into her small apartment and kicked the door shut, behind her. She was exhausted in every sense. She stripped all of her clothes off and deposited them in her waste bin. She immediately brought herself into the shower, making the temperature as hot as she could manage. Her face sagged with mourning and fatigue.

At some point, she looked down at the ring on her middle finger, which she had already decided she would never take off.

_“The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.”_

Eve huffed and tears began to stream down her face.

She thought about the quote—not imagining it through Villanelle’s perspective, this time, but through her own.

Eve thought about Carolyn’s stone-cold expression as Villanelle fell to the ground, and she resolved that she was never going to work as a spy, again.

To even her own surprise, Eve fell asleep, sometime around 5:00am. The exhaustion made it possible.

In Eve’s dream, she picked flowers from every nearby garden in London and placed them under Oksana’s hands, in her hair, and all around her.

Maybe in Eve’s other dreams, she and Villanelle could have a chicken . . . Maybe Villanelle would come to appreciate their pet and mimic its sounds, and Eve would laugh and laugh. Maybe Eve would never tire of laughing.


End file.
